TOKYO: The 24-year-old suspect in a knife and arson attack that injured 17 people on a Tokyo train Sunday evening has told police that he targeted Halloween crowds, sources said Monday.

Kyota Hattori, arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, said that he thought there would be many people on trains on Halloween and that he started planning the attack around June, according to the Tokyo police sources.

It has also been found that shortly before the attack, the suspect walked around near Shibuya Station of East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, where many young people gather on Halloween night, the sources also said.

According to the investigate headquarters at the Metropolitan Police Department’s Chofu police station, Hattori said that he was inspired by an incident in August in which a man was arrested after attacking passengers with a knife and attempting to set fire to cooking oil on a train on Odakyu Electric Railway Co.’s Odakyu line in Tokyo.

The attack took place on an inbound train of the Keio line of Keio Corp. running in the Tokyo city of Chofu on Sunday evening. Hattori was arrested on the scene on suspicion of attempting to kill a man in his 70 who was stabbed and lost consciousness.

Just after getting on the train at Chofu Station, the suspect sprayed what appeared to be pesticide at the seated man, stabbed him in the right chest and moved to a different train car.

He then sprayed onto the floor what appeared to be lighter fluid and set fire to it with a lighter, burning the floor and seats.

Hattori told police that he bought about 10 containers of lighter fluid, the sources said.

Several plastic bottles containing transparent liquid and several spray cans were found inside the train and the bag he carried. The investigation headquarters is checking the liquid, the sources said.

JIJI Press